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Melani

#1,056 in 2025Girls' name

Black, dark, through Melanie

Melani has been given to 5,912 babies in the U.S. since 1947. In 2025 it ranked #1,056 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 2020, with 258 recorded.

Babies named Melani, 2025

1 in 14,200

Melani over time, 1880–2025

Girls
010020030018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Melani: meaning, origin, and history

Black, dark, through Melanie

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Melani means

Melani belongs to the name family reached through Melani → Melanie. Its meaning is “black, dark”.

Origin, language, and formation

Melani is used in German and Spanish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Melanie.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Spanish, Melani is pronounced /meˈlani/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 5,912 girls were recorded with the name Melani between 1947 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 258 in 2020; its best national rank was #990 in 2020.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #990 in 2020 to #1,056 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #1,754 in 2015 to #1,056 in 2025.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Melani?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 14,200
234 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 6,870
0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#1,056
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
9,821 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Melani sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 5003%

Put another way: gather 9,821 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Melani. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Melanis were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Melani was born before 2009 — so the typical Melani is around 16 today.

Median birth year
2009
About 16 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
25.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
69.1%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
5,892
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 25.1% of all recorded uses (1,486).

Is Melani rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
−46
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
−66
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
+698
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
1.95×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
90.7%
Peak was 2020 (258)
Years since peak
5
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
15.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#990
2020

Spellings of Melani

Melani is not the most common spelling — Megan is, with 42.7% against Melani's 0.57%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Melani is used

Across 2016–2025, Melani was most concentrated in Georgia — about 1 in 4,545 girls, against 1 in 7,078 across all states with data. It was least common in Missouri (1 in 50,000).

222 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Georgia1 in 4,545
  2. 2Arizona1 in 4,762
  3. 3Illinois1 in 4,762
  4. 4Florida1 in 5,000
  5. 5North Carolina1 in 5,263
  6. 6Virginia1 in 5,556
  7. 7Texas1 in 5,882
  8. 8South Carolina1 in 6,250

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings.

Melani around the world

Where Melani ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    2012–2025
    #5,927
    in 2025
  • Ireland
    2009–2016
    #868
    in 2016
  • France
    1995–2024
    #6,125
    in 2024
  • Canada
    1993–1996
    #2,248
    in 1996
  • South Australia
    1956–2006
    #782
    in 2006

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Melani

People whose public names include Melani, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Melani in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Melani. Linked forms have their own page here.

Melania

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Melani by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#1,056
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 66
Best rank ever
#990
2020
Peak year
2020
258 that year
First recorded
1947
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
5,912
Count in 2025
234

Names similar to Melani

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

MelonyMelonieMeliaMellieMelodiMelanyMelisaMelinaMelaniaMelodieMeleahMalaniMelodeeAilaniNalaniMelenaMelizaKalaniMilaniMelanaArmaniAylaniMeliahEmani

Names with a curve like Melani

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Melani, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

SorayaMalkaMariellaQuincyRoriVioletaValeryDaniLeenaSereneJosephinaRivka

Sibling names for Melani

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Melani

Top names of 2020, Melani's peak yearThe 2020s in fullOther names that peaked in 2020Girls' names starting with M